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The Descent of Man.

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by Anna Raccoon on July 9, 2010

The eugenic implications of embryo screening technology are obvious.

Unlike the ugly reality of Nazi eugenics which sought to destroy fully formed human beings to arrive at an allegedly ‘perfect’ human race, screening technology seeks to arrive at a similar result in a more subtle and deceptive manner.

Softly, softly, catchee monkey.

We have long since fought the battle that determined it was a woman’s ‘right’ to decide whether or not to carry a foetus full term and deliver – and care for – another human being. Those who muttered in the corner that she already had the right to keep her legs crossed were brushed aside in a welter of emotive media set pieces concerning the relatively few women in the population who were not only raped but, even more rarely, impregnated.

Who but the stoniest heart could ask a woman to carry a child that was the result of a brutal criminal offence?

Women were universally victims of men’s unbridled sexual desire, we had no choice in the matter, and we had to be given legal rights not to carry the resulting child. Strangely, no one was more vociferous in painting women as victims, nor are today, than the most ardent feminists, who would choke on their polenta and gorgonzola fritters at the suggestion that they were victims too.

We were given the right to destroy a part formed human being.

Scientists moved on at a rate we could scarcely keep up with, and soon announced that not only could they tell us the sex of a child, but whether it was ‘defective’ in any way. The media gave us heart rending stories of the relatively small percentage of the population who are born with painful and terminal genetic disabilities.

Who but the stoniest heart could ask a woman to carry a child that was destined to live a short life of pain and misery?

We were given the right to destroy a ‘faulty’ part formed human being.

Around the same time, hospital wards were divided into ‘maternity’ and gynaecological’ – no longer one and the same thing, for in one ward life was encouraged, in another it was extinguished. However, the post-war baby boom had come to an end, and the birth rate was falling. There simply wouldn’t be enough worker drones to support all those baby boomers in their old age. Something must be done!

The scientists set to work again to solve the conundrum of infertile women and infertile men – a conundrum previously solved by adoption, now ridiculed by the ease of abortion.

The first IVF baby, a happy bouncing smiling soul was launched onto an expectant world by the media. This was the future. Now it became a woman’s right not only to not have a child she didn’t want, but to have the child she did want. No womb, through birth defect or gender? No problem, surrogacy was born.

The prospective Mother was able to take advantage of the abortion laws should the resulting fledgling life turn out to be defective, and despite the life forming within her, still had the right to say ‘No, thanks, not today thank-you’.

IVF moved on apace, albeit with the law limping in the rear, sperm donors could be matched with wombless prospective parents of either sex, and the resulting child born to a surrogate Mother would never know, for the birth certificate would merely register the name and address of the ‘current owner’.

The age of the ‘egg donor’ arrived, to match the sperm donor. The Immaculate Conception could take place in the laboratory in hygienic conditions. Concerned that hygienic conditions could quickly deteriorate into eugenic conditions, the courts stepped forward with unaccustomed alacrity and decreed that testing of embryos prior to implantation in a way that does not ensure their survival was in violation of the law.

But – who but the stoniest heart would ask that a woman wait until her pregnancy is established to decide that the child is faulty and she would like an abortion forthwith?

On Tuesday, the Federal Court in Germany was asked to decide whether a Berlin Doctor who had tested three embryos and ‘discarded’ (the world of bioethics is full of such euphemisms) those he felt to be ‘sub-standard’ had broken the law.

The court found that ‘because the ultimate goal of pre-implantation screening is a healthy pregnancy, such tests are not in violation of the law’. If only because such tests in the womb are allowed in order to give women their ‘rights’.

Now, in Germany at least, clinics will be able to advertise 100% perfect pregnancies…..satisfaction guaranteed, no need to claim under warranty and undergo a traumatic abortion if your new baby product is not 100% perfect, this years blue eyed, blonde haired, gender to match your chosen nursery decoration, Aryan descendant.

The initial decision concerns genetic defects, but IVF clinics are private businesses, run for profit. Who will stand over them watching to see exactly why ‘that’ embryo was ‘discarded’ and ‘this’ one implanted?

Humanity in Germany has entered a place where there are no identifiable limits. A dark, dark place. Where the creation of life resembles the early factory production lines, with the white coated scientist patrolling, clip board in hand, ensuring quality control.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

“The Embryo Protection Law sought to prevent exactly that which the Federal Court of Justice has now chosen to allow: Namely the selection of “good” and the correlative destruction of “bad” embryos. With good reason. The selection of embryos involves much more than merely increasing the success rate of artificially implanted pregnancies or that of preventing the later abortion of a presumably handicapped foetus.

Embryo screening means certain life forms are not allowed to exist at all. And that opens the door wide open to judgments about which life forms have value, rather than just determining their viability.”

{37 comments }

IanJuly 10, 2010 at 12:47

“Who will stand over them watching to see exactly why

IanJuly 10, 2010 at 10:27

But

john malpasJuly 10, 2010 at 02:06

You seem to assume that doctors can deliver perfection. Best be a bit wary.If a generation of perfects are made they will surely need servants. So breeding of dumb willings will be seen as righteous.Anyway it is all womens fault. Your real problem, is will men pay cash for someone elses child.

Meanwhile with absolute freedom for abortion rights a given must on the west coast of the US and with huge subway signs paid by quangos at all the stations promoting the good use of aborted foetus as fodder for stem-cell research, the socialist controlled city of San Francisco is holding hearings and will soon ban the sell of pets by pet stores – in order to force adoption of animals already in shelters and prevent their euthanasia.

The emphasis is on saving the animals, because they are soft and cuddly, furry and cute, while ignoring the plight of the unborn foetus who if photographed after abortion would cause uncomfortable feelings amongst the politically correct, morally incorrect, socialist friends of abortion who will bring about the new eugenics for which much of the world seems to be clamoring.

Kind of makes you wonder, how did it get so turned upside down in only the course of a few short decades to a century of marxist infiltration and corruption.

Kind of makes you wonder, how did it get so turned upside down in only the course of a few short decades to a century of marxist infiltration and corruption.

Peter Singer is your answer – in his defence, he didn’t expect to be taken so seriously.

LebensraumJuly 9, 2010 at 16:31

If society allows the individual freedom to pick and choose which foetus isacceptable and which is not, surely the state backed by the people ,of course,should have the right to decide which groups of the populationshould live or die.If we deny one of our species the chance to live becauseof deformity then the natural order tells us to discard those unable to take care of themselves. If our freedom loving liberals wish to tinker aroundwith the thin end of the wedge, we should remind them they will amongst the first on the trains and their pleas for mercy,just like the murmurs of the unborn,will not be heard

Think hard .

Jeremy PoyntonJuly 9, 2010 at 15:15

Anyone who has worked with sufferers of Downs Syndrome will know they are as human as you and I; indeed, many such have a capacity for joy which we “normal” people rarely experience. It is a learning lesson in humanity to be with such people; whilst I am no opponent of abortion, and see it as exclusively within the rights of the female, Downs Syndrome sufferers are as human as you or I. Hence, I consider the aborting of a foetus found to have Downs to be an act of murder.

Couldn’t agree more Jeremy, my Uncle Popsy was a source of joy and delight from the day he was born until the sad day of his death. He had huge advantages over the other people I was reluctantly related to – he didn’t understand how to hold a grudge, his idea of winning an arguement was to tickle you until you gave in, not sulk for the next fifteen years; his genetic ‘disability’ so far as I could ascertain, consisted of a complete absence of the ‘bitter’ gene, and the ‘revenge’ gene – both of which were markedly present in other family members that were never contenders for the ‘first down the sluice’ race.He had the good fortune to be born 60 years ago, at a time when he – and his so called ‘disability’ – were considered a welcome addition to the family.I understand that nowadays a hare lip is grounds for abortion. What next? A crooked nose?

PericlesJuly 9, 2010 at 15:55

Having never been faced with the dilemma, I cannot bring any expertise to bear on the question ; I wonder, however, whether the motivation behind abortion in such cases

Pericles, nature does indeed terminate pregancies, and for unknown reasons,, but patently not for carrying the Down’s syndrome or for hare lips, at least not consistently nor reliably else, we should not be having this conversation.

UncleMortJuly 9, 2010 at 20:46

I was born with a congenital heart defect. I’ve had a “normal” life so far (age 56) but I would still support this. I hadn’t been born for 13.7 billion years, I didn’t miss it, so if If I hadn’t been born at all, what the hell. If we can screen for those with a better chance at life then why not?

KingbingoJuly 9, 2010 at 16:12

Had Uncle Popsy not been born would not another version of Uncle Popsy had come along instead?

I’m not unsympathetic, I am close to cousin who is very disabled. My aunt has had to almost dedicate her life to my cousin who needs a lot of care. Had he not been born they would have had another child certainly, why should that other child have been denied the chance to live. Of course I love my cousin, but had modern methods allowed another Cousin to be born instead I would love them all the same, and the ability to be free and self-sufficient would have been so so much higher for both my cousin and aunt.

Furthermore,it would be considered a horrendous crime to knowingly inflict a disease or disability on someone in their 20′s. So why is it wrong to spare a potential child from a disease or disability from birth, and instead use modern methods to help select a child with the most advantageous genetic start?

But it wasn’t ‘denied’ the chance to live – it didn’t exist theefore could not have been granted or denied the chance to live.

I presume it was your Aunt’s choice not to get pregnant again?

Why is it so ‘right’ to deny a child life becasue it has a hare lip? That child does ‘exist’.

PericlesJuly 9, 2010 at 17:29

For some years I would assist at an establishment for the severely handicapped

KingbingoJuly 9, 2010 at 18:51

I would not attempt to convince you. But this is what I think, (and as many do). I simply do not equate a early stage embryo as a person. Nor do I worried about denying that child a life, because in my case we would simply have another instead, and do not therefore deny that one life.

Perhaps this is coming from my perspective as a younger person about to embark on a family. Having a plan, 2 children, we want them to have every advantage and be in the best of health. If embryonic select was available to me I would want to use it. I would choose the embryo that had the most genetic advantages. But for me these future children do not exist yet, only the idea of them. But the idea is of ‘a’ child, not ‘the’ child.

In your case, perhaps as older person your looking at real people, and envisaging real relatives and thinking, would I have wanted that person discarded before they are born. That’s a much more gritty question that way around.

That said it is very unlikely we would do such a thing, we would simply decide one day we are financially secure enough so why not, go the old fashioned route. I just like the idea of being able to use such a service, I suspect I may be 20 years too early.

Kingbingo,I respect your reply, as I respect your right to disagree with me. I don’t seek to convince others of my view, just to express it.I also think you have a very valid point there, and an interesting one – that age gives you a wider knowledge of a wider group of people and perhaps what may appear imperfection to someone younger, especially in an age where perfection is so highly valued, is just seen as an interesting facet of their person rather than a defect.

Gloria SmuddJuly 9, 2010 at 20:16

Kingbingo, I wish you well as a young person about to embark on making your family with your wife from half way round the world. The gene-pool mix looks good, you have youth and enthusiasm on your side and you’ll probably make your two lovely children without any trouble: I did, becoming pregnant for the very first time on my 32nd birthday. I tried 2 years later for the second Smuddlet and was dismayed that the first attempt wasn’t successful. One more month later I was pregnant and thus my two children were planned, conceived and delivered with copy-book precision with a smug delight that not only were the kids perfect but we’d got them just when we wanted. And there was minimal danger that they’d encounter a member of an identical gene-p0ol when they themselves mated, since he’s half Dutch and a quarter Canadian while I’m a Scottish/English/generally North East blend. Double smug delight for us as parents – one of each, pigeon pair, two years apart, chums for life etc., etc., etc.

The only time I have ever had to face the blunt possibility of an abortion is when, after my second (and relentlessly unhappy baby) child was nearly a year old, and (rather foolishly) we began to use some ‘oldish’ condoms which broke. That’s when I knew I couldn’t face having another child with my first aged three and needing much more of my attention than he was getting and my second one almost as upset by her constant crying as I was. I took the morning after pill 3 times, 3 times having the entire contents of my reproductive system liquefied efficiently and 3 times thanking medical science for two days of purge versus the question of having an abortion. I knew I could never have an abortion with as much certainty as I knew I did not want another child. After pill #3 I announced I wanted to be sterilised because I was certain I did not want any more children but also certain I could never have a child aborted. Mr Smudd didn’t want me to go through the ‘bigger’ op and opted for a vasectomy. (NB – he already had a much older 3rd child born from a brief relationship but entirely to the mother’s convenience…..)

Nothing about having children is easy, clear-cut or trivial. I wish you well as it’s now your ‘go’. Good luck.

I am so delighted that we had two healthy, wanted children. But daily I thank whatever that I never had to take the decision to terminate an unwanted child or have a child I knew I didn’t want. So science is marvellous in some ways – there’s a liquefiying pill.

KingbingoJuly 9, 2010 at 20:38

Gloria, a touching story.

But what is the difference between a liquefying pill and an early stage abortion a few weeks later. A matter of degree perhaps.

From my point of view I absolute support the freedom of a woman to choose an abortion. But it must be appropriate. Where to draw that line is very difficult. If it just a bundle of cells it seems OK as in your case, if it is a few days before delivery, clearly not. But I don’t know where exactly inbetween is the right line. 4 weeks? 8? 12? Although I believe the current limit is 20?? weeks, that just seems wrong to me.

Gloria SmuddJuly 9, 2010 at 21:28

I don’t know how to reply to you. My point is that I am so grateful I didn’t have to make the decision about an abortion, going as I did literally the next day to the doctor and taking the pill literally less than 24 hours after our apparently faultless coupling, thereby avoiding a hideous decision a few weeks later. I know I wouldn’t ever have had an abortion and thanks to this pill I didn’t have to.

As I said, I wish you and Mrs Kingbingo well with your procreation and I’m not going to ‘pull rank’ by describing the massive change that having a child brings. I will say, however, that in my experience even the most picture-perfect relationship needs to have the elasticity of the most elastic substance in the world to ping the lovers who have now become parents back together (even occasionally) once the relationship is not two points on a straight line but a triangle which will change to a square as the next child is born. And that’s the sobering fact about it – your relationship is changed beyond belief BECAUSE you are parents, testing even the keenest couple-bond.

I’m having the menopause & hot flushes. My son is 16 & my daughter is 14. Their hormone levels are rising just as mine are plummeting so low I’m likely to have a shattered shin any minute thanks to my brittling bones. They enjoy conflict, I’d rather crawl (on my shattered shins) across broken glass than spend my life arguing with them, having cherished the relationship with their father through those baffling and alien early years. But there’s no end to it.

As I said before, you have my best wishes. The gene-pool looks good. You and Mrs K’b’go will no doubt love each other enough through the whiffy sick and the bawling and the 8 years of reading the same bedtime book each night.

This is where I may pull rank and say ‘been there, done that’. But only because now my two planned and wanted babies are now teenagers and it’s all different and I’m talking to them about their relationships and their sexual activity. The most powerful thing I seem to have said to them is that I didn’t get pregnant until I was 32 and had been with their dad for 5 years. I didn’t have to make a decision about an abortion and for that I am still profoundly grateful. Neither of them are keen to make a decision about having an abortion.

It’s a constantly changing landscape. Good luck and happy baby-making. Enjoy the time when they are about 7 – 12 because then they are thoroughly brilliant fun. They change you from the minute they are born and so it should be, but I’ll say again that you need an incredibly strong relationship to be still in love with your partner (and them in love with you) after a couple of squealy rug-rats.

Bon chance, mon ami.

KingbingoJuly 9, 2010 at 21:37

“As I said, I wish you and Mrs Kingbingo well”

Thank you, and I shall surely be considering your message.

P.S. Its Queenbingo

View from the SolentJuly 9, 2010 at 14:13

‘Tis such joy to be alive in this Brave New World.

English VikingJuly 10, 2010 at 17:58

Most people won’t know what you mean, they’re so whacked out on their equivalent of Soma.

Try ‘Amusing ourselves to death’ on Youtube.

Nick2July 9, 2010 at 14:07

The initial decision concerns genetic defects

Which presumably means that anything that is inherited but currently ‘undesirable’ could be grounds for terminating the foetus.

Maybe the intention of the court was to allow medically informed, parental choice where their child would have gross deformity, either mental or physical. But what counts as a ‘defect’? And who can be confident that what is considered a ‘defect’ now may in time be viewed as a genetic advantage? As an example, consider the genetic variation that gives rise to sickle cell anemia (presumably a ‘defect’ as it reduces life expectancy)- and the side effect of resistance to malaria – which could otherwise result in an even shorter life.

Finally, if parents are allowed to pick their childrens’ genetic traits it could well give rise to reduced genetic diversity and maybe even (in time) a form of ‘inbreeding’. Reduced genetic diversity as very few parents are going to want their offspring to be ‘less than their maximum potential’ – which is probably going to result in fewer children with traits that are not currently ‘valued’. See China for a recent example of parental crude genetic selection – the imbalance between the birth of girls and boys, resulting in life-long gender imbalances for Chinese born after 1978. ‘Inbreeding’ as those traits that are discriminated against will reduce in the genetic variety of (Western at least) children.I remember reading ‘Brave New World’ many years ago at school. Back then Huxley’s tale was interpreted as SF, commentary and warning. Now it seems to be a prescribed philosophy, except that everyone wants their child to be an Alpha, with the other castes taken by the children of other less wealthy parents.

KingbingoJuly 9, 2010 at 14:49

“if parents are allowed to pick their childrens

Ed PJuly 9, 2010 at 14:03

The next step forward will surely be gene-splicing. Just as plants were selected and hybridised successfully with age-old natural methods before GM, so humans will be too.So my hypothetical baby will be selected not only for intelligence, beauty & physical fitness, but also perhaps with a built-in Wifi neural link, chameleon-like skin, extra senses, infra-red vision, GPS…Now how did the film “I, Robot” finish?

PericlesJuly 9, 2010 at 13:50

I can recall Peter Simple

ChrisJuly 9, 2010 at 13:44

Yes, heaven forfend that those eeeeevil Germans use their wicked science to screen for potential syndromes while a child is still in the womb. Far better that a child be born blind/deaf/with a congenital heart defect/downs syndrome (as God/Nature intended) than that they be a fit and healthy Frankenbaby.

Interfering with nature is baaaaaahd.

English VikingJuly 10, 2010 at 17:55

So let’s kill all the handicapped children eh? They’re so… distasteful?

KingbingoJuly 10, 2010 at 19:19

Or save them from being handicapped in the first place.

English VikingJuly 10, 2010 at 20:04

We could shoot blind people too, and ‘save’ them from their handicap.

When this nonsense eventually leads to where it inevitably will and ‘mental defectives’ are routinely disposed of, I’d start sweating if I were you.

KingbingoJuly 11, 2010 at 18:53

“When this nonsense eventually leads to where it inevitably will and

KingbingoJuly 9, 2010 at 13:41

Good. With current technology I should be able to take the wife along to a private clinic and select the best possible embryo for pregnancy.

It would be selected to have the best possible start in life, mentally superior and physically superior to a random. Screened to remove all physical defects.

Since I want the best for my perspective kid. I should be able to buy that. Its just like paying out for school fees. Its just at an earlier stage.

Plus just think how much better society would be if it became normal to be born the best genetically you can be, free of defects and disease. Mentally as sharp as you could be. evolution through other means now that natural selection no longer applies. It would certainly help keep costs down at the NHS.

I don’t care about this: Thou shall not interfere in GODS DOMAIN.Because I don’t believe in him.

KingbingoJuly 9, 2010 at 14:36

or her…

PTJuly 9, 2010 at 12:28

Evolution by other means? Or should that be the cessation of evolution? Either way, it’s another step towards taking the process out of the hands of that kind, old, red-in-tooth-and-claw Mother Nature. As a product of said Mother, I wonder if we (or those who claim to speak for us all) can do a better job or not.

EleanorJuly 9, 2010 at 11:51

Beyond The Fringe.

Gloria SmuddJuly 9, 2010 at 22:56

Take no notice of me. I know nothing. Take just now, Friday night, husband, wife & daughter having a rump-steak barbeque. Daughter doesn’t want steak so I made fishcakes for her instead. She ate hers, her father and I ate outside together (nice) and she stayed ‘”away from the mosquitos”. Pudding was to be what she had made from the ingredients I raced round the late-night stores yesterday so that today she could make a pineapple upside-down cake, gathering together the essential ingredients. Just now my daughter has screamed her blame at me for her choosing to take a hot dish out of the oven with an inadequately-folded tea-towel. Her fingers are a bit burned. The newly-washed oven-gloves in the ‘futility’ room don’t matter, because I didn’t make sure I’d sent her a note on facebook telling her where they were and it’s my fault she didn’t say ‘”Muuu-uh-uum? Where are the oven gloves?”. I’d bet every pound she’s had spent on her since she was born that she didn’t speak to the teacher in charge of her class today like that.

KingbingoJuly 10, 2010 at 11:22

I can vaguely remember my teenage years. It was difficult from that tiny and so narrow view point they have. They can feel bound by their parents and strive for independence without having any understanding of responsibilities. A bit like what happens under statism I suppose.